Delbrück’s heritage in syntactic reconstruction and history of linguistics Paola Cotticelli-Kurras. .

My contribution focuses on historiographical aspects of Delbrück’s heritage concerning the development of theories on syntax and on syntactic change.1 To this end, it is worth starting from the last point in the title, since the scope of Delbrück’s work can be better defined by highlighting his discussion on the heritage of syntactic ideas from his predecessors, which was able to make him the so-called founder of comparative syntax. In the following paragraphs, I shall illustrate the contribution of the histor(iograph)y of linguistics to syntactic studies to highlight the role of Delbrück’s teaching in the syntactic works of the 21st century (§2). An overview on Delbrück’s publications is hoped to be useful in defining the extent of the areas of his works (§2.1). Furthermore, my paper illustrates the use of a double perspective within historiographical studies, the so-called ‘internal’ and ‘external’ view with regard to the history of linguistics. (§2.2). A first purpose is to illustrate the continuity and novelty in Delbrück’s theoretical paradigms (§2.3). A second part will give an insight into Delbrück’s works by sketching a picture of his internal development (§3). One important topic is the dimension of language reconstruction in his works (§4), connected to its heritage in terms of key concepts, method, and syntactic theory (§5). Some concluding remarks close my article (§6).